A Reliable Wife Read Online Free PDF

hands. He
     had looked at her picture a thousand times. Now it was clear she wasn’t the woman in the photograph, and he had no idea who
     she might be. His relation to every person in the town rested on the fact that he had complete control over everything that
     happened to him. Now this wild thing. The train late. The blinding snow. This woman.
    It was a mistake. He felt it in the pit of his stomach, everything wrong, the letter, the picture, his foolish hope. It was
     a mistake to have wanted, to have felt desire, but he had, he had wanted something for himself. Now the object of his desire
     was here, and it was all, none of it, what he had wanted.
    He had wanted a simple, honest woman. A quiet life. A life in which everything could be saved and nobody went insane.
    He couldn’t turn her away, couldn’t leave her in a blizzard. He couldn’t be seen leaving her. There would be talk. He would
     appear to be unkind. So he would take her in from the storm, give her shelter for a night or two, no more. Her beauty troubled
     him the most, so unexpected, the sweetness of her voice, the fragile bones of her hand as he helped her into the carriage.
     Who, then, was the woman in the picture? It troubled him, enough so that he was sharp with the horses and would not look her
     in the face.
    “I have an automobile,” he said, for no reason. “It’s the only one in town.”
    She didn’t know what to say.
    “It’s not good in the snow.”
    I am in the wilderness, she thought. Alone with barbarians.
    They were leaving town, and the horses were skittish in the wind. He was never rough with them, and now he could feel their
     nerves through the leather. They just wanted to get where they were going.
    Catherine saw, through the snow, the endless flat fields on one side and, on the other, a broad river, clogged with ice. So
     bleak and forlorn.
    She thought of the lights of the city, the endless activity, the beer halls lit up in the snowy nights, the music, the laughter,
     the girls pinning on their hats and rushing out to find adventure. The girls would laugh in front of warm fires with men who
     had written them love letters. They would eat roast beef and drink champagne and rush everywhere, their dresses hiked to their
     knees as they ran through the snow, the laughing girls, drawn by the warmth of the gaming tables and the fires and the music
     and the company.
    Here, out past the lights of the town, there was no sound. There was nothing except them, their carriage, the lanterns shiny
     on the road.
    The river looked hard as iron.
    She pictured the music hall girls. The men with decks of cards in their pockets and revolvers tucked in their boots. The sweetness
     of the languid air in the opium dens, warm when the night was too cold to move, the Chinaman waking them with tea when the
     storm had passed or the dawn had come or all the money was gone. The trolleys would already be running, taking people, normal
     people, to work. And the girls would laugh, knowing what a ruin they looked.
    A million miles away. Another life, another night, a million miles down the slick black river to the bright and clanging city.
     Her friends were already decked for the night, seeking the heat, the music washing over them, their beautiful dresses, and
     laughing at her folly. She was already a thing of the past, to them. They had no memory.
    The deer came out of nowhere, racing, bucking with terror, and was gone in an instant. They saw its frightened eyes for only
     a second, as its antlers brushed past the horses. Suddenly the world was in white chaos.
    The horses leapt back in terror, charging upward in their traces, jerking the carriage sideways and almost over, righting
     it again as they bolted. Catherine heard a single shrill whinny, like a scream, and they were racing off, bits in their teeth,
     cracking ice flying from their manes, Ralph standing now, standing in his seat and pulling at the reins with all his strength.
     She felt the